


Saviour

by AtPK



Category: The Hobbit (Jackson Movies), The Hobbit - All Media Types, The Hobbit - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Barduil - Freeform, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 17:26:00
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,053
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4313880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AtPK/pseuds/AtPK
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Barduil Week Drabble: Dreams / Nightmares (Day 3)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Saviour

“My lord.” the guard in waiting muttered, approaching the throne at a respectful pace. “We have received word from Laketown.”

“What of it?” Thranduil snapped. He was still bristling from the loss of the dwarves, and the impudence of the orcs that has dared venture into his lands.

“My lord,” the guard said again, and this time Thranduil felt the goosebumps rise on his flesh. “The dragon,” the guard sounded afraid. “It has awaken.”

Thranduil jumped from his throne as if propelled by an invisible force, running to the window. He could see the red in the sky, just on the horizon. The red of dragon fire. His heart clenched in his chest and he backed away slowly. This is what he’d warned would happen, but that stupid dwarf hadn’t listened and now he’d awakened the great beast from it’s slumber.

Thorin had once again brought fire reigning down on them all.

Thorin didn’t remember the dragon wars.

Thorin had never tasted the burn of dragon fire.

Thranduil did. Thranduil had.

He backed away until his shoulder touched the throne, and then he sat on the lowest step, staring aghast at the flaming sky.

“My lord,”

“Leave me.” Thranduil ordered. The guard did as he was bade.

This was it. His nightmare had come true. The dragon was awake. The dragon wouldn’t stop until all their lands burned. The dragon would come and he would be able to do nothing. He’d be helpless to stop it, just as he had been the last time he had faced such a mighty beast. The night he had lost his beloved. The night he had fallen into darkness.

Thranduil curled in on himself, pulling his knees into his chest, unable to drag his eyes away from the fire on the skyline. Waiting for the fire to turn his way. Waiting for it to once again consume him.

“My lord,” the guard returned.

Thranduil turned tired eyes towards him.

“Is it come?” He asked, resigned to his fate.

“My lord,” the guard said again. “The dragon is slain.”

Thranduil took a moment to comprehend his words. The dragon was slain. The dragon was dead. His nightmare had not come to pass.

“How is it possible?” he croaked, his mouth and throat dry after his time of solitude, waiting for the end to come.

The guard handed him the note. Thranduil ran his eye over it.

“Who is this man, who could slay a dragon?”

“It is Bard, my lord.” the guard said, and a memory sparked in Thranduil’s head.

Bard the Bargeman.

A mortal man. A human man. A slayer of dragons.

“The survivors from Laketown, my lord; they are headed to Dale.”

“They will find no welcome in Dale.” Thranduil murmured.

His gaze once again drifted to the window, the red still scorching the sky.

He had been spared the fate he had feared above all else.

“Prepare the carts; food, blankets, medication.”

The guard bowed.

“We leave for Dale at first light.”

***

Bard twisted and turned, wrestling with his sheets, finally coming awake with a stifled yell. He had dreamed his aim had not been true. He had dreamed that Bain had burned in front of his eyes. He had dreamed that he too had burned. He had dreamed that he had failed them. He had dreamed that he had not been able to protect them. He had dreamed that he had lost them all. His worst nightmare imagined.

He sat, heart beating fast in his chest.

The children were sleeping. Tilda tucked safely under Sigrid’s arm, Bain at their feet. They were dirty and bruised, but they were alive.

Bard was tired, a deep seated weariness that settled in his bones. He moaned as he flung his legs over the side of the bed, pushing himself to his feet.

Dale was not fit for human habitation; there was very little water and the only food they had was the food they’d brought with them from Laketown. Medication was nonexistent. The people were broken, lost and starving. Bard had saved them from the dragon, it was true, but he couldn’t save them from the fate that now awaited them. Starvation. Disease. Death.

It was as he wondered among the sick and wounded that he realised, he may saved the children from one danger, but he could not save them from this. This slow, wasting, pain; so similar to the wracking sickness that had taken their mother. Bard couldn’t watch them go through that. He couldn’t face it again.

They had trusted him, the people of Laketown, and he had led them here, where a new nightmare awaited them. Famine and cold.

Alfred, the dirty, wretched creature, was sleeping at his post, and Bard had to resist the temptation to kick him as he past. He rounded the corner, expecting to see only the gates of Erebor, stopping short at the sight in front of him. That was the last time he trusted Alfred.

There was an army of elves before him; their armour glinting in the early morning light. They parted like a sea as he stepped down among them. It was so like a dream. He had to pinch himself to make sure he wasn’t still asleep. He reached the head of the column, just as the lord Thranduil rode into the courtyard, astride a bloody huge great elk; which did nothing to dispel the dreamlike quality of the whole thing.

Bard stared up at him in awe.

It was only as the carts of food, water, blankets pulled up behind the elk that he knew they had been saved. The elf king of Mirkwood has saved them all from the slow painful existence Bard had foreseen. The lord Thranduil had taken them under his protection.

***

“You have saved us,” the Bargeman said. “I do not know how to thank you.”

Thranduil pulled on the reigns of his elk, turning her slightly.

His heart screamed to say that no it was Bard who had saved him; it was Bard who had killed the embodiment of his fear; it was Bard who had freed him from his nightmare. But instead, what came out of his mouth was:

“Your gratitude is misplaced, I did not come on your behalf. I came to reclaim something of mine.”


End file.
